


Ill-Fated Wings, Held Together With Vanity And Candlewax

by MogmaMittens



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: ... im not even sure this really constitutes as angst but you know., Angst with a Happy Ending, Love Letters, M/M, Mutual Pining, Vignette, i really did bastardize greek mythology for this. you're welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 10:05:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13656759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MogmaMittens/pseuds/MogmaMittens
Summary: There's a boy who lives in the sun - Noctis' father had always told him so.





	Ill-Fated Wings, Held Together With Vanity And Candlewax

There is a boy who lives in the sun.

 

His father told him so, a long time ago, when he was still of this earth. There is a boy who watches over them, made of fire and light and kindness. If Noctis were to call to him, he would protect them - he watches over both of them, of course, so once he passes, Noctis will still never be alone.

 

Being a child of barely five, he takes it to heart.

 

Noctis is fourteen the first time he sends the boy who lives in the sun a letter. It’s silly, and he’s barely learned to write by the books his father had left him. It’s clumsy, “HELLO?” written in charcoal and smudged half across the parchment, torn halfway through the second L. It’s a chance he’s scared to take when he sparks the magic in between his palms to burn the well-worn paper he holds in between his palms. It’s an old way to send messages - it won’t _actually_ burn, it will just transport it to the desired location, and what better way is there to send something to the sun than to burn it?

 

And then, scared, he waits. Practices. His handwriting hardly improves, not with something as hard to work with as the whittled charcoal he’d found in the back of his desk, but it shrinks enough to be manageable, and he thinks it’s legible enough.

 

It takes a week, but when Noctis wakes on the seventh day, he finds a sheet of parchment laying flat on his desk. It can’t be his, for certain - he’s got no neat papers left, having destroyed or crumpled them years and years ago.

 

_“Hello?”_

 

The handwriting is neat, beautiful, in a dark red ink that reminds Noctis of blood.

 

He… feels like he should send this paper back, with something better this time. More beautiful. His paper is a poor replacement, yellowed and wrinkled with age. All he needs is a good quill and ink - there has to be some, somewhere in this tower. His ancestors had lasted long enough without going mad that they had to have done _something._

 

It takes him a whole day to find a bottle of ink, and an additional half-day to make himself a quill. He flips the paper over, where there’s nothing but blank space, and starts writing.

 

_“Do you live in the sun?”_

 

Half the words are smeared, and the ink is blotted out when Noctis tries to remember a letter or spelling more than once, but it was readable. More so than his first note, at least, which he’d smeared his arm over a dozen times, leaving very little more than a black smudge on paper.

 

Carefully, like last time, he sends it off. This time, it only takes two days before he gets a reply. It’s written on a new sheet of paper, in the same ink and handwriting. Noctis grins.

 

_“I do. Who asks?”_

 

Once again, he flips over the sheet, shakes the inkwell for good measure, and writes a reply.

 

_“Noctis Lucis Caelum. I live in the tower. In the centre of the Labyrinth.”_

 

It comes the very next day, this time. Noctis has never been so excited in his life, which doesn’t mean much.

 

_“Ah. ‘Tis a shame about your confinement. The word is a beautiful place, Noctis Lucis Caelum. It is not often I receive letters. Why do you write to me?”_

 

_“It’s lonesome by myself in this tower. I… wanted to see if you would reply. My father told me of you, years and years ago._

 

_You can call me Noctis, by the way.”_

 

He leaves, just briefly, to make his dinner, and when he returns, there is a new parchment on his desk, just as pressed and clean as the first.

 

_“A surprising amount of familiarity for a mortal, though I will allow it. You may call me Ignis._

 

_If I may ask, why are you locked in that tower?”_

 

It’s… a good question, and Noctis only knows the abridged version. It’s in no books, only told to him by his father, but he can… try, at least.

 

_“Do you not know?_

 

_My great-great grandfather, I was told, doomed me to this. The whole family. He built this Labyrinth to hide the Behemoth, and then built this tower with my great grandfather. Though I do not know to whom I was born, it may be the result of a curse upon this place that requires my life, as well as my young death.”_

 

Why _not_ tell a practical stranger the story of his life? That could go well.

 

Noctis felt like he’s known him, though, since his father took him to his balcony and told him that when he’s scared - and he was, and is, frequently - that the boy in the sun would be there for him. It’s only natural that he’d be willing to tell him anything now that contact has been established.

 

_“I do not. Even from my perch in the sky, I cannot see the triflings of humans. You are very strong, Noctis. May Ifrit watch over you.”_

 

Noct smiles and holds the paper in his hands, crinkling the edges with his grip.

 

Which is _exactly_ how he started sending love letters to Ignis Scientia, the boy who lives in the sun.

 

* * *

 

They didn’t start getting, well, _romantic,_ until he was fifteen or so, and even then it was only barely. Flirting, Noctis knows, because Ignis told him exactly what it was when he did it.

 

There is… a lot of poetry, in a language Noctis doesn’t quite understand. Ignis assures him he didn’t even write it, it’s just from books Noctis couldn’t’ve possibly read. Noctis is inclined to disagree, just because Ignis lives in the sun - he could do _anything._ He might just be humble.

 

_“How’s this one?_

 

_sic erit; haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae,_

_et possessa ferus pectora versat Amor._

_Cedimus, an subitum luctando accendimus ignem?_

_cedamus! leve fit, quod bene fertur, onus._

 

_It reminded me of you.”_

 

Noctis… still can’t speak this language. He’s never even heard it aloud, and he can try to pronounce it, but it sounds wrong enough that he’s fairly certain he just won’t be able to figure it out on his own. He does recognize _Amor,_ though, and that makes his heart beat just a bit faster.

 

He sits on his balcony, nowadays - the sun burnt his skin at first, too hot and uncomfortable from all the time he’s spent inside, but now it’s a comforting heat, and Noctis can no longer imagine spending his days indoors. For his writing, he’s dragged a plank of wood outside to rest on his lap, and Ignis’ letters now appear before him in a flourish, rather than on his desk when he’s not looking.

 

“ _You spend so much time outside, now. Why?”_

 

_“I’m scared of the dark. I always have been. This is just the first time I’ve felt safe enough to spend time outside.”_

 

_“You’re scared of the dark? That’s rather ironic.”_

 

Noctis frowns, furrows his eyebrows. Ironic? Why would it be ironic? Is it because he lives in a tower, in the darkness, or…?

 

_“How?”_

 

_“Do you not know the meaning of your name?”_

 

… His father had never told him. Noctis never asked.

 

_“No.”_

 

_“Noctis Lucis Caelum. Light the night sky. You are the light, Noctis. There is no reason to fear the darkness.”_

 

* * *

 

Noctis is nineteen the first time Ignis appears before him.

 

It’s in a dream, and Noctis can barely remember it when he wakes - he only knows that when he does, there are blisters on his skin. They go up his stomach, his forearms, and when he looks in the mirror the skin is peeling on the center of his forehead.

 

_“Did you kiss me?_ ” Noctis asks, amused, once he’s dragged himself out of bed and found his quill. He doesn’t mind either way, of course, though he would like to _remember_ it next time.

 

_“Did it hurt you?”_

 

_“Only a little. Will you see me again tonight?”_ He rubs at the skin between his eyes, and it’s still hot to his fingertips. The pain, though, is different than that of a normal burn - or he’d be in terrible pain from the blistering, he figures - and they only truly serve to make him warm. It must’ve been Ignis’ doing, either because he hadn’t wanted to hurt him or because he couldn’t if he tried.

 

_“I wouldn’t miss it for the world._ ”

 

* * *

 

At twenty, Noctis decides he wants to be with Ignis. It’s not easy, and he dares not to tell him. It would be dangerous, Noctis knows this, and Ignis would never approve. He thinks of it, even whilst he tears apart his pillows and heats old candles for wax. He wants to see _everything,_ the beauty of the world, from where Ignis sees it.

 

He wants to see _Ignis._

 

The wax burns on his skin, more so than anything Ignis has ever or would do to him, in his dreams or otherwise. The feathers, barely long enough to constitute as wings, tickle his back when he moves. It is the only way to leave the tower, he knows, because his father had told him so long, long ago. His ancestor, who left, but was so vain his wings were melted by the sun and he fell into the Labyrinth. He’d never returned, and Noctis’ great grandfather had no choice but to assume his death.

 

The sun will not burn _him,_ though, because Noctis hold’s the sun’s heart. Ignis would do him no pain, and certainly would not send him spiraling to his doom.

 

His balcony is warm today, and the stone sizzles against his feet when he goes to stand on the railing. He can _see_ it, as he has every morning, every night since he was born - the edge of the Labyrinth, where he could never reach. He will be trapped here. He will _die_ here.

 

Not anymore.

 

The wind cascades past his front, and his wax wings flutter and tickle his skin in the breeze.

 

He jumps.

 

* * *

 

The water is cold around him, colder than his tower, colder than the snow in winter and the ice that collects in the dungeons that span beneath the earth.

 

_This was a bad plan._

 

It fills his lungs, burns his eyes. He’s never drowned before, but he imagines this is what it must be like - fuzzy, soft and blended around the edges, while he sinks into the darkness.

 

And then, he sees _her._

 

_“Noctis,”_ she says, ethereal and floating in the water. It’s lighter around her, and she looks more like the moon in the night sky than someone awaiting him in the ocean. She smells like flowers. Sylleblossoms, specifically, and though he doesn’t know how, exactly, he knows that much. Her hands are cold when they cup his jaw, and her blonde hair floats weightlessly around them both when their foreheads touch.

 

_“That was foolish, Noctis.”_ Her arms wrap around him, and the fabric of her robe is softer than anything he’s ever felt, plunging down farther into the ocean than he can see. He inhales, and it’s _air,_ filling his lungs and forcing out the seawater. “ _Come, and pray to Shiva that she will take you.”_

 

* * *

When he wakes, there is once again fire on his skin.

 

_She_ stands above him, skin icy to match her hair, and the girl from the ocean sits beside her, her hand just as cold as before on Noctis’ forearm.

 

“Where-” he coughs, rolls over, and water pours from his lungs. The blonde’s hand rubs up his spine, and he sucks in a breath, his body trembling. He nearly _died._ “Where am I?”

 

_“You will return to the ocean soon. The Hydraean desires you._ ” _Is that Shiva?_ He lays on his side, facing away from the both of them, arms wrapped around his stomach. It is too cold here, _too cold,_ ice is collecting on his skin and he yearns for the warmth of home.

 

That’s a new one.

 

_“When the sun dips into the ocean,”_ Shiva says, voice heavier and more blunt than he would’ve assumed from a goddess, but that’s none of his business, _“and we come, you will see him again._ ”

 

“Why… why are you helping me?” his voice is weak, roughened by saltwater and interrupted by the clicking of his teeth. Perhaps the ocean would be warmer. Perhaps he’d just have to get used to it.

 

_“That fault is mine, dear Noctis._ ” The blonde’s hand is on his shoulder, and he wills himself to turn, just enough to see the sad, pitying look on her face. “ _Together, we have lived a thousand lifetimes, and each time, I have seen you fall. I am sorry I cannot do more._ ”

 

He watches her lean forward and, carefully, she kisses his forehead. Her lips, much like her hands, are cold.

 

With that, he plunges down, down, down, into the ocean, where the Hydraean awaits him.

 

It is still cold, Noctis finds, except where the sunlight filters through the water’s surface and illuminates the greyness of his skin. There is where Noctis waits, watching, waiting to again feel Ignis’ hands on his skin.

 

* * *

 

_“...Noctis?_ ”

  
_“You can call me Noct._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> i have a lot of other fics halfway finished for ignoct week and yet here i am. not finishing any of them. :^)
> 
> i have a [twitter!](http://www.twitter.com/lgn1s)


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